Archive of Our Own

It’s a bare-bones house—cold in the summer and colder in the winter, with an old foundation and new everything else. It’s on one of the cliff faces, with high dragon probability and low safety probability, and it’s all Astrid knows. There’s a spear on one wall and a sword on the other—a weapon each for her parents—and both are dull by the end of the week, needing Gobber’s workmanship to bring them back to life.

There’s dragon blood staining the doorway every other week, and Astrid learns to clean it young, learns to wipe and oil weapons and take furs off to the barrels at the back, watching her mother and father scrub the heavy overcoats until they’re ready for another beating.

And every day, every raid, she looks up at that tiered house that overlooks them all, with the rock behind and the cover it gives, and wonders what it’s like to have something to hold onto.

There’s no way to claim her parents are the best fighters at Berk, nor do they have anywhere near the most kills, but there’s something to be said about their bravery and their care. Sure, her mother’s early loss of limb and her father’s always-torn shoulders may have slowed them down earlier than the rest of the pack, but they’d instilled something in her that was worth gold and a Monstrous Nightmare head—loyalty.

To Berk.

To its people.

That no matter the straggler, one of their own was still to be shielded from those winged demons.

Still to be fought for, killed for, died for.

People over dragons.

Berk over all.

Astrid gets that chip early.

By six, she’s the sprinter, and she learns to tuck and roll with a blunt wooden axe, purely by watching those of age at training.

By eight, the axe in her hand goes from wood to metal, and when she throws it, it always hits.

By eleven, Gothi visits that bare-bones house with Stoick the Vast himself, and there is a discussion of sorts, wherein they call her a wonderful little viking, a brave little girl, a brilliant mind for future generations.

She’s named fire brigade captain.

She’s the youngest leader of the fire brigade to ever grace Berk’s shores.

Up, to the stars—the sight is always beautiful on their isle, but Astrid always feels a hint of dread on clear nights like these. It swirls in her stomach and dives deep, and she does what matters to keep it at bay: Count.

Count the houses on the outskirts still standing.

Count the people, count the sheep.

Count the children.

Count the risks.

The last one’s always the easiest—Hiccup is aptly named, because unlike his forebears, he is the cause of nearly every catastrophe before, during, and after a raid.

Her father calls him half-hatched. Her mother calls him three-footed.

She calls him lucky.

Lucky to be born a chief’s son.

Lucky to somehow still be alive.

Lucky to be able to coast, and still be able to come home to that tiered house on that safe cliff.

Thing is, when they were younger, he wasn’t so bad. Maybe she’d pitied him for not having a mother, or maybe she was too young to notice his glaring lack of athleticism, but he was good company.

Funny, sharp, and content to watch her and the other kids throw axes and play swords. He’d fix their grips when the leathers wore out, adjust their pauldrons when the bolts loosened—he’d sit and cheer and pound on the ground like any raucous viking, and it wasn’t so bad, not when they didn’t have as many raids and not when they hadn’t lost as many ships.

Hiccup was smart like Fishlegs and scrawny like her and mouthy like Snotlout—and how would she have known, at three, at four, at five, at six?

How would she have known that three would sail purposefully to the world of their parents and one would stay back, marred by his own existence and his own ill-fated luck?

He wasn’t so different, back then.

He wasn’t so bad.

Not yet half-hatched.

Not yet three-footed.

Just Hiccup.

Just a boy.

Just an old friend.

The older she gets, the better she is at spotting what her peers are good at, and what they’re absolutely catastrophic at.

By the time she’s thirteen, the Thorston twins have flunked out of their age group’s run at top slayer and fallen back into her fire brigade. They’re spindly, loud, and eager—perfect for running down small fires if she frames it as a competition.

Fishlegs and Snotlout are easier to delegate—capable by themselves, even if Snotlout does try to show off for her in an unsolicited show of affection. They’re opposites in cowardice and bravery, brains and brawn, thoughtfulness and brashness—but they work, listening to her when it matters.

But him.

Every step Hiccup takes outside of the forge is another alarm to sound, deep in her bones: Danger. Destruction. Death.

He’d been the cause of her house burning down at least once—one of his sad attempts at swinging a too-large sword at a Nadder of all things, his slow swing sending him lopping off the ropes of a torch instead of the quick reptile’s head.

A bounce down the walkway and alas, alack—the Hofferson home had gone up in flames once more.

She’d seen greater men kicked off the island for less, but if they gave leeway to the lad because he was only a lad, it did nothing to stop her from wondering: Does a chief’s son matter more than the rest of the isle?

Not to take away from his skills—he was, of course, a not-terrible smith, and she could acknowledge that much—but to balance and settle with his debts would take more than a few sharpened axes and ill-functioning dragon-killing contraptions.

Plans, Astrid knew, held risks.

And plans for survival, with a boy like Hiccup on the loose, well…the embers and burnt wood above her crushed bed could speak to how well that gamble was going.

If she was good at recognizing greatness, my, was she spectacular at spotting flukes.

It’s painful to admit, but her aversion to undeserved preferential treatment, her deep disdain for the lax and lazy, her pride in forging her own destiny—it did cloud her judgment.

Once.

When it mattered.

She’d been putting out fires and avoiding Snotlout’s loud tales of excess—a wee lass at just shy of twelve, running to and from water stations with buckets bigger than her head.

And she’d seen it.

Her father striking a Gronckle hard enough to deter, and fetching a wiry body from the ground beneath it.

Hiccup.

Unconscious.

She’d seen him earlier, running with another one of his inventions, and for the first time hadn’t bothered to tell him off—didn’t bother to tell him to go home, or to the forge.

That was the first twist to her gut.

She’d dealt with it the way she thought all vikings did—pretended it didn’t matter, that it would’ve happened anyway, that it was his fault to begin with.

But at home that night, in the firelight and with a sleepiness brought by a satisfied belly, she’d asked, offhand, why her father had defended him. Wouldn’t it be easier—

“Astrid,” he’d cut her off, with a voice so different, so uncharacteristically firm, that she instantly recognized her misstep, “when one of us falls, all of us fall.”

Her mother had stared her down, then. “Berk, my child. Berk over all.”

“Berk over dragons,” her father said in quiet thunder.

“Berk over pride,” her mother said in loud musing.

When, at sixteen, she saves Hiccup from getting squished by a toppling training wall in the Kill Ring, it is those words that ring in her ears.

She never falters again.

That house on that hill becomes a prize to be sought.

All of them muse about chiefdom, though of all of them only Snotlout has blood to claim it. Berk had seen its fair share of changes in leadership in its earliest days, always instigated by their seers, but for the most part Hiccup’s family—of which Snotlout was a branch—had run the island in uncontested glory.

But, as with many things, that was before the latest Haddock showed himself to be a particularly incapable fighter and, well, leader.

Who would rally around a troublemaker?

Who would follow a screwup?

Tuffnut is the loudest about it, though the years passing with the twins not excelling and them being continually held back stalls any competition before it can start.

Snotlout jokes enough about it, but Astrid knows he would only do it to spite Hiccup, and that does not a leader make.

Fishlegs would rather read on chieftain history, preserve it, and enjoy the intellectual pursuits afforded to him by being in a position of power—perhaps a run at Valhalla after penning his own epic.

Ruffnut would rather fight on the frontlines, the allure of the office really more of an afterthought—something to ensure food on her table and a warm place to sleep at night. Maybe a statue or two, like Tuffnut’s boasts, and maybe some eye candy on her arm to complete the picture.

As for Astrid?

She would do it all: Lead, read, battle.

She’d be just like Stoick—front of the fight and fears unseen. Just like her parents in their unwavering loyalty and propensity to protect. Just like her ancestors in their commitment to the cause, in their desire for a new world—a free world.

A safe world.

She would be the chief Berk needed, the one it begged for—the one who toiled with it and mourned for it, who raised it high and brought dragons low.

And she’d tell Hiccup that, one day, too.

If he would live to see it.

There are days when Stoick speaks to her personally, praising her and the others for their tenacity and ferocity. He gives her some tips for the axe and talks shop about the last raid—Chief, I think there should be more buckets and troughs by the south hill—and pats her on the back as if to pass blessings.

Those days, she comes home walking taller, prouder, bolder.

Those days, she believes her dreams will come true.

In the weeks of their parents’ departure for the nest, in the early days of their relentless training in the ring, it is Astrid’s disdain that creeps up the most.

The whole brigade had conversed on it more than once, and more than thrice—Hiccup, for whatever his status, should not be here.

Here, as in their island.

Their village.

And now, their training.

Astrid wouldn’t understand until years later how much leeway the adults could truly give, but in their minds, at that age, it was much more than simply unfair—he wasn’t performing, wasn’t contributing.

He was dead weight in an heir’s seat.

A squanderer of opportunities.

A source of trouble for rescuers.

A bane of the gods for his peers.

The words her parents had drilled into her kept him safe and well more than he would ever know, but Thor almighty—

If she could toss him up as dragon bait, she would. Absolutely. Without a first thought, even.

She’d use that double-barreled ballista-thing he’d supposedly shot down a Night Fury with—ha!—and send him up and away herself.

What he does in the ring—now that he’s squirmed his squirrelly self in—is ask questions and scamper, cowering as a Gronckle almost blasts his head off, as a Nadder almost turns him into skewered lunch. What he does outside is worse—distraction upon distraction, escaping away between meals to Odin-knows-where, doing Odin-knows-what, and coming back worse than he’d left.

Her axe is sharp at all times, but lately it’s been getting sharper; there’s nothing much to do outside of the physical drills and the review of the Book of Dragons—which, yes, she’d read it ages ago, but the information isn’t mind-boggling by any means, and it hadn’t taken much more than mentally repeating them to herself during raids to get the basics all down. She finds herself preparing the double blades to relax from the feeling of dread that her parents might not come home—yes, off to Valhalla, of course off to Valhalla, but she would still—and from the feeling of rabid annoyance she’d found herself drowning in every time Hiccup dared to cause problems.

Which, lately, has been more than usual.

The worst part is his inadequacy makes the others think they’re doing well, but if the trend of almost maiming and burning and death during slayer training is of any indication, that was simply not true.

All their lofty thoughts are in the depths of the ocean, dead and drowned, and she’s left to pick up the slack by her absolute lonesome.

May the gods grant her someone—or someones—to form something here that would matter.

Something here that would keep them alive.

Hiccup tries to talk to her at the library on the rafters of the Great Hall, and after giving him a second chance to stop acting insane, she does it, finally—lays into him and says it, says she’s eyeing his house and his seat, with deep smugness and pure confidence, to scare him. To wake him up.

Astrid doesn’t expect him to agree.

She doesn’t expect him to say that his dad would be thrilled—that she’s the kid he’s always hoped for.

She doesn’t expect to feel blindsided instead of powerful. To feel pity instead of pride.

So.

He didn’t care for chiefdom.

Neither for the house.

What was that like, she wondered?

To not care for that tiered house.

To not want that hallowed seat.

And why? Why not want for those? Why vie for top slayer when you’re content to be nothing and no one?

Why show up at all?

She’d stared at him when he’d answered. It had felt like a bucket of ice water pouring over her—Hiccup was not a threat.

He wasn’t smug, or privileged, or special.

He wasn’t anything at all.

Astrid’s not one to rant to other people. Rarely, perhaps, to her parents—like all children do, when they’ve yet to learn to filter their words and to create their own spaces.

But now that she’s of age, the concept isn’t appealing—she’s a viking, and she’d rather fell a tree than talk about her feelings.

But, gods above, she has so many.

The Zippleback fiasco was, surely, a fluke. Beginner’s luck that had been procrastinating its arrival.

But then…the Gronckle…the Nadder…the Terror…

And every afternoon, a missing Hiccup. Every meal, a larger crowd than the last.

Even Snotlout, with his ever-present lines vying for her attention, had opted out of her table and off to his cousin’s, as if all was now forgiven—Hiccup was excelling without all the brute force the rest of them had trained in, as if he knew how the beasts thought better than they did themselves.

Astrid hated it.

Half-hatched and three-footed?

Bah.

He was lucky.

He was always so. annoyingly. lucky.

The house is bright before she’s even home.

She runs to see if her parents have both returned—she’d heard from the twins that only one ship made it back, and nothing ever allays the knot that a single return ship brings.

Three are for a battle.

Two are for rescue.

One is for survival.

That bare-bones house is loud when she gets to it, and the sound washes over her like downpouring rain, drowning her in a flash flood of relief. Her aunts are here, too, and the last of her uncles—a little celebration in the midst of the loss.

A little cheering in the wake of failure.

She steps into the fray and “Astrid!” her uncle says, hauling her up into a bear hug. “We’ve heard!”

For a second, it’s elation.

For a moment, it’s pride.

She grins. Of course they’ve heard—

“Hiccup doing well—one less thing to worry about!” her aunt with the missing hand says uproariously. The statement’s met by a chorus of cheers and a toast and Astrid, held and unable to escape, soaks it in.

There are no tears of grief when she heads to bed, but the first tree she sees in the morning earns itself wounds fit for a last stand.

It takes her a few hours to find it.

A felled tree pointing down to a cove, a hidden gem in the forest and an even more hidden trail—she finds his bootprints and tails them to the opening the next day, after he’s cut her out of the running, after his luck beats her experience, after her pride overrules her patience.

Her parents didn’t need to know, because it’s not like she would hurt him. The others didn’t need to know, because the running was hers to defend. Besides, she was just here to talk.

…Very loudly, but still. Talk.

She sets up shop on one of the larger boulders, busying herself with sharpening her axe. For once, it did little to calm her down. Circling thoughts of his easy successes overshadowing her stratagem and physicality, the few hesitations she’d had the first days, the forced humility he’d had the last…each one an endless chain, repeating and repeating and repeating, like patterns on the roof.

Everything she did wrong. Everything he did right.

Criticality, thy name is Hofferson.

…But no, there must be a reason. Even luck has something to it—a trainer? Gobber had a soft spot for him, maybe he’d claimed a favor—

She hears him stumble in before she sees him, and she waits, lets him converse with someone she can’t find before she makes herself known.

When she jumps down from the rock, he’s wearing a jumble of leather that look suspiciously like they’re for weaponry, and much too much food for a boy of his size.

She asks if he has a trainer.

He lies.

Then, she sees black.

In her youngest years, she’d dreamed about the clouds.

The stars had held a special place in her heart after her mother had taught her how to navigate, and she’d dream, night after night, about sailing on clouds and touching them. They’d be strung to each other with invisible ropes, and one pull could bring her skyship forward to the ends of constellations—never lost, never fearful.

She would always make it back home.

To that bare-bones house on that vulnerable cliff.

There would be no dragons, and no fires, and no missing sheep.

This?

This was better than that.

Toothless had almost made her want to fall off willingly in the first few minutes of their flight, but to the endurer go the spoils—a touch of wisps and cool air, a sight of sunset and dancing lights.

When she’d touched the Night Fury, apologizing, she’d felt him reverberate acceptance, something between a purr and a thread of thunder.

When she touches Hiccup, murmuring the reminder of what tomorrow would bring and what the past has wrought, she feels him tense.

“And one of them took my mom,” he reminds her, snapping slightly. He’s never bit back at her before. “But do we just keep killing one another?”

When she asks if he has any ideas, it’s a poke at his resolve more than anything—he’s made his point, and she’d left her desire to maim him back on that spire.

He’s calm when he replies. Tactical, for the first time she’s ever known him.

He doesn’t know—says she’d botched their escape—but he’ll think of something.

She feels respect at his steadfastness creeping its way upward from her gut to her heart, and she’s uncomfortable, uncomfortable, uncomfortable at the possibility of seeing him as something instead of nothing.

Fog, Astrid thinks, means dragons.

This isn’t always true, of course, but the winged creatures had always taken to hiding themselves in it, swooping for prey and evading steel. Fog is when she was taught to stay indoors, to ready the buckets, to keep still.

And fog, apparently, is when dragons get called to haul home their kill.

Toothless turns rigid, gliding as best he can towards whatever it is that causes his head to swerve, one way then another, searching for a voice neither she nor Hiccup can hear.

It’s downhill from there.

Swarming dragons—every kind she’s ever read about, and then some—fly and swerve as one, dipping through the fog and clouds until it’s her and Hiccup gasping at the sight of rocks and red.

“The dragon’s nest,” he breathes.

The goal, she thinks.

After they witness the nightmare fuel on that island, after they’ve flown back in a rush as that ancient dragon snapped at stragglers, after the sun has faded on the cove and they’ve landed and put space between themselves—space, she notes, that feels foreign—she lets loose the whirlwind thoughts of the nest and the queen and how it changes everything.

Astrid tries to convince him to tell Stoick, to end this war, but Hiccup won’t budge—he’s set on protecting Toothless.

The urge to maim has returned, and in a passing moment, she wonders if it’s tied to being on land. “Are you serious?” she asks, growing frustrated.

His jaw is tight when he finally answers: “Yes.”

For the first time in her life, she thinks he looks like his father, and talks like his father, and thinks like his father. It’s a reflection of a different world, but in a flash of inspiration—or, perhaps more aptly, stubborness—Hiccup, bathed in evening dark and starlight, seems to her a leader.

A chief.

“…Okay,” she promises, and she means it. “Then…what do we do?”

(We.

We.

Did she really say ‘we’?)

Her heart thumps, and something deep in her mind commands her to pay attention. Something here, it whispers, growing louder when Hiccup says to give him til morning, when he swears he’ll think of something.

A specialness here, the voice says.

What was that she was good at?

Recognizing greatness?

She catches his eye and it’s weird, the reflex—she throws a punch and says it’s for the kidnapping, and she should stop there, really, truly—

But before her mind can fully register it, she’s kissing him on the cheek, for everything else, and ditching before he can make her regret it. Her trek back to her house is more of a run, and her descent into dreams is more like fitful huffing, the thought of what she’d done entrenching itself like a Nadder’s talons in her mind’s eye.

Is this how he’d felt?

Every time he’d watched her, staring like a lamb drunk on milk?

Is this how he’d felt when he’d realized she was something special?

She keeps her eyes shut, hoping the familiar snores from her parents would ease her to much needed rest, but she gives up when the fire dims ever so slightly, two logs gone along with her common sense.

The flap of dragon’s wings, she figures, held no competition to the impossible surge in her gut.

It’s Ruffnut in the morning, feral as ever, bumping into her and chatting away about front row seats, and Girl, you’re sitting with us, right? and If he gets eaten, you can totally tag in!

It’s Tuffnut agreeing, patting her shoulder excessively like an elder might, and adding, But you’re not me, so you might have trouble. She almost laughs, until her eyes lock onto the chains and bars of the Kill Ring up ahead.

It’s Snotlout flip-flopping between offering unsolicited consolations and excitement for the day’s events. She doesn’t bother twisting his arm, just out-paces him and keeps him way, way behind.

It’s Fishlegs she ultimately excuses herself from, skipping his rundown of Monstrous Nightmare statistics. Her stomach was twisting with every number; something tells her whatever it is Hiccup’s planning, it won’t end well—and he’ll need backup.

He’ll need her.

Astrid weaves past the vikings ahead, pivoting a hard left to the doors with her chest battering like a dragon in a cage. She’d seen Hiccup make his way there earlier, ahead of the entire island—Stoick was beside him, all grins.

Her stomach drops again, from the thought and from the boy in front of her, helmet in his hands and gaunt resistance on his face.

Stoick, above, is giving his speech.

(She’d thought of the day those echoing cheers would be for her. She thought it would feel like success, true success—the greatest rite of passage she could’ve hoped for, and the whole village present to celebrate with her.

To hear them now, after being shown what life could be…)

“Watch out for that dragon,” Astrid says, and again, she means it. Her loyalties have shifted, and she knows it—Berk and dragons, together.

And who to better personify the two than the boy himself?

Another thump, thump, thump in her chest, louder than before.

She’d rather not think of what they mean.

One heartbreak is enough, Hiccup must figure. One more notch of shame instead of a new rebel. Astrid can tell when he tries to protect her, when he knows his plan is haphazard at best.

“Just—don’t get involved. My dad respects you too much,” Hiccup says, pleading with his eyes.

I don’t care, Astrid almost says, because it’s true, in some ways—Stoick the Vast’s acknowledgement of her and of her prowess, of her hard, hard work…it wouldn’t matter if Berk were gone, hundreds more of them picked apart and sent off to feed their queen, or to crash in the fog bank trying to find her.

It wouldn’t matter if nothing changed, now that she knew it could.

“Yeah, but…you have something I don’t. Something none of us have,” she says, because this is it—this is leading. This is strategy and loyalty and wisdom.

Knowing when she’s wrong.

Knowing when someone else would do it better.

Spotting flukes.

Recognizing greatness.

She gives him a promise and he returns it, staring down the tunnel and into the arena, eyes on his father.

Astrid doesn’t leave when the gate rolls down shut.

“Astrid! Get back here! That’s an order!”

She ignores the words, and it slices her in half—her hero, her chief, and now—just for now, Odin help them, let it be just for now—her enemy.

She feels nothing, sees nothing, except for Hiccup scrambling for an escape and the Nightmare nipping each in the bud. Somewhere between protecting him and avoiding losing a limb herself, she hears the high-pitched screech of Night Fury fire and feels dread in her bones, rattling like a raid alarm.

Toothless came to save Hiccup.

And she knew they wouldn’t be able to save him.

Nothing good could come from trying to bar a viking from killing a dragon, but she had to try.

Load of good that did.

For the first time in her life, Stoick turns his glare to her.

For the first time in her life, she feels the world she’s loved all her life abandon her.

“And you,” he says, deathly and grave.

She hears the word Traitor, muffledly spoken by someone above.

Her hands grip Hiccup tighter, and he shifts closer, desperate for his dragon and desperate for help.

She breathes deep, and hopes Hiccup can hear it in her silence:

Come what may.

Badgering Hiccup in the before was about reminding him of his place and making him work for it.

Badgering Hiccup in the now is about getting him to realize his destiny and helping him reach it.

She’ll just have to apologize for the ribbing when they get everyone back alive.

“Because I wouldn’t kill a dragon!” he yells, exasperated at her prodding.

A tug of a smile on her lips and she thinks, not for the first time, that it’s nice to see him look so alive.

“You said ‘wouldn’t’ that time,” she says, grinning as the pieces fall in place.

The tightness of his jaw says he’s about ready to fight her, but he’s not running, and she takes it as a win. All she wants is to know what’s going on in his head—to record it, for herself or for posterity, and to keep it close.

To remember it, to remember this moment, on this cliff and on this hill. To replace the dreams of a tiered house with a thriving Berk, and of a chieftain’s seat with a rider’s saddle.

Thump, thump, thump.

He was something.

He was someone.

She’d just stopped paying close enough attention.

To see a dragon attach itself to her…to bond with a beast she’d whacked on the head multiple times during training…

The Deadly Nadder is deadly indeed, cocking its head to one side to see her better. Astrid’s hand shifts, but still it rests on blue and green and yellow scales.

She smiles. Her new friend’s sharp eyes are critical, and they’re fast. In her chest, warmth spreads, like blankets of wool, one atop the other. It understands her, is just like her, and she doesn’t need to share a thousand hours of flight to know it.

What a beautiful animal.

Astrid thinks love is starting to make sense, and she spares Hiccup a grateful smile as he eases the Gronckle into Fishlegs’ hand.

He smiles back.

She remembers him telling the rest of the crew of her importance when they’d walked in the ring, and how that had immediately replaced the dream of cheers and being named Top Slayer.

She’s starting to think his smile is going to be a problem.

Quiet, for vikings, is never a good sign.

When she was eight, she’d lost two uncles in quick succession—both great warriors, both bold men. The days the ships came back were the worst—spotting people disembarking from where she watched at the top of the pier became unbearable after the second loss, and she’d stopped going altogether.

If there was bad news, the fire at home would be unlit.

She did not want to know if Hiccup’s house was unlit when his mother was taken.

She did not want to know if it would be unlit tonight.

Stoick is a broken heap at the foot of that kindly dragon, that gentle beast. No one speaks and no one moves, and it is quiet, it is much too quiet for a place filled with the wild people of Berk.

Astrid is the one who breaks the still.

It’s a reversal of all those times before—a pat on the back and a proud cheer is now a hand on a shoulder and silent amends. Stoick looks up at her and she can’t unsee the resemblance between him and her aunts those years ago.

Utterly lost.

Disastrously empty.

She forces herself to look at Toothless.

It’s not his fault, she tells herself. He fought, too.

The Night Fury looks at her and she’s back in the air, an arm around the missing boy and a hand on that beautiful creature’s back, calling a truce and starting a friendship. She’s back on the nest, hiding together.

On the cove, kissing a cheek.

There’s a spark, and she feels the roll of emotions build from her gut to her gullet, lips quivering and eyes watering.

I should’ve kissed him on the cliff.

Toothless eyes her.

For a moment, she thinks it’s an apology.

In a blink, she realizes it’s trust.

Black wings open like a present on Snoggletog, and Stoick scrambles.

She doesn’t breathe until she knows Hiccup does, too.

That’s an order.

That’s an order.

That’s an order.

It’s an echo and a storm, a dark arena beset with clouds and fog and the roar of an unseen army. There are dragons—too many dragons, picking sheep and fish out of the Kill Ring and breaking through the chains to fly high.

Toothless is dead center, wings wide. He shields her from a gas cloud and a fire, and then—

The scene shifts.

The stone underfoot crumbles. There is lava sputtering out, and honeycomb-like hiding spots all over, as she floats high above. The dragons have gone, but the storm is full bore—lightning strikes around her, and swaths of rain sizzle as they strike the magma far below. Toothless is all that’s left.

Strangely, he’s alone.

Stranger still, she sees arrows fly from the magma, each larger than the last.

Arrows turn to spears.

Spears into axes.

Axes into swords.

A familiar handle flies directly at her, and she’s helpless to flee—whatever had kept her afloat in relative safety now kept her restrained, forced to watch the molten blade rise until it’s level with her face.

She makes the mistake of looking down.

The magma is gone, replaced with men and women she’d seen leave and never return.

At their head, as he ought to be, is Stoick the Vast.

At his side, as he shouldn’t, is Hiccup.

Astrid’s face contorts.

Hiccup wouldn’t be here.

Hiccup shouldn’t be here.

“What are—” she tries to say, but the sword she’d ignored has made its way back to its owner, and its owner his way to her.

Stoick’s face is red with rage, eyes trained on her and that menacing acknowledgement of what she’d done wrong. His sword is up to her chin, his mantle is ablaze.

“And you—”

Astrid flinches. This is not the voice of her chief. It is deep, booming, and strong—but it is also dark, growly, and haunting.

“You’re not Stoick,” she says, wary.

The problem is, the sword feels very real.

And Hiccup is…quiet.

On the side of the ghosts.

Wait.

Neither of them should be on the side of ghosts.

“Astrid,” Hiccup says, but it isn’t kind.

“Astrid,” her uncles say, but it isn’t jolly.

“Astrid,” the ghosts echo, over and over again, and she feels herself jam her hands over her ears and scream for her Nadder—for freedom—for anything—

“Astrid?” her mother coaxes, pulling her back to the land of the living. There’s another gentle touch on her arm—her father, softly kneading at her forearm.

She blinks, a drowsy, cat-like thing, adjusting to the light flooding in from the front door.

A shadow blocks most of it.

What leftovers of the nightmare are draining and draining quickly—something about dragons, but not, and yet about ghosts.

Something about the—

“…Chief?” she asks, pushing herself up. Her thighs burn with the movement, a reminder of long hours in flight and of almost falling off in the middle of the ocean.

That’s right.

They’d flown back.

Back, and back, and back again.

Not everyone was so willing to approach their mortal enemy so quickly, and with all of the nest’s inhabitants flying off at the outset of battle, their little fire brigade—literal and a reversal now, however that may be—became makeshift ferries to and from the dragons’ island.

And Astrid, with the fastest dragon there, had made the most trips.

She’d been the one who’d loaded Hiccup on with her, the rest of the pack splitting the weight of a net, carrying Toothless safely back with his co-pilot.

If she was hoping Hiccup would wake on the long journey home, she would be disappointed in the deepest sense.

Stoick had watched her, she knew, between trips and landings. He’d stayed behind to see others off safely, and every flight back was met with thanks and the insightful wariness only a chief could give.

He’d watched her because of his son—what did the boy do to make her listen?

What did she have that let her?

“Maybe it’s fate,” Gobber had said when they were all back on Berk and the kids had all shakily rolled off their dragons, falling to the ground like anchors on land. He was just barely within earshot, watching her hop off her Nadder and check in on Hiccup the second she was free to do so.

Maybe it is, Astrid had thought.

Maybe it could be.

(She’d fallen asleep on the hard floor beside him almost immediately.

Truth be told, she’s still not exactly sure how she’d returned home.)

The first thing Stoick says is, “He’s still asleep.” It’s for her, obviously, and she lets herself relax even as warmth washes over her face.

The second is, “How is she holding up?” for her parents. Not that her unusually groggy state would let her answer coherently, anyway.

“Slept through the morning, if you can believe it,” her mother says.

“Nothing serious. Gothi says she’ll be fine with some rest,” her father adds.

“Good kid, that one,” Stoick says with a nod.

“Bravest in the family.”

Her mother snorts. “You can say it.” She turns to Stoick. “Braver than all of us, standing by Hiccup. Smarter, too.”

Stoick steps over, patting Astrid’s shoulder gently like he used to. “Thank you, lass. You did well, Astrid.”

She takes it, the praise. Takes it with her when her eyes droop again, her whole body still utterly exhausted from effort and adrenaline.

“Wakes up,” she mutters, involuntarily laying back into soft wool.

Stoick contains his laugh, just barely. “Aye. You’ll be first to know.”

Soft cooing sends her back away. Her father’s voice speaks. “Rest now, bairn. You’ve earned it.”

Dreams bring dragons and sunlight and six riders instead of five.

Dreams bring cheering and grass and a feast.

You did well.

You did well.

You did well.

She’s out cold until after dinner.

Astrid settles for pretending everything is okay, alright, never better. She takes the Nadder out—a girl, Fishlegs had told her, the first time they’d met each other with hands and peace instead of axes and shouts—and races as high up as possible, touching clouds and gliding back down. It takes time to name her something worthy, but when she realizes the Nadder’s speed reminds her of stormy winds, she grins and pets her, awe in her voice as she offers, “Stormfly.”

The dragon hums, and away again—away into the clouds and back down.

Stormfly, Astrid thinks with a smile. She offers a scratch behind her neck as they coast, eyes on the ocean deep.

They never coast down facing Berk. The one time she’d made that mistake, she’d stared at that tiered house on that safe hill and almost let go of her reins, forgetting she was still airborne.

Stormfly chitters.

Oddly, it seems morose.

“I know, girl,” Astrid says quietly, petting her. She doesn’t know if her hunch is right, but he had been the one to free her, and he was the first to give her a good scratch. It wasn’t crazy, and frankly, she needed to commiserate without all the pitied stares. “I miss him, too.”

Stormfly hums again, and she gets it, now.

She loves this Nadder.

And Stormfly loves her, too.

“Nothing from Gobber?” Fishlegs asks when she slips off Stormfly at the ring.

She shakes her head and doesn’t add a word.

“Five days,” Snotlout says, clicking his tongue. He’s adjusting the saddle Gobber had made for him—one for everyone in Berk, and he’d prioritized the brigade. “That’s a looong time.”

It’s not malicious.

Astrid glares at him anyway.

“Uh,” Ruffnut says, slinking her way, “are you…okay?”

“You’re not dying, are you?” Tuffnut tacks on, earning a whack from his sister. “Ow! What! It’s a valid question!”

No, but I feel like it, Astrid thinks, and realizes that ew, ew—she needs to talk to somebody. She needs to rant to someone human.

But the only one worth speaking to wasn’t waking up.

Stormfly tilts her head, a wide eye looking up and down at her partner. She sniffs, hesitance in her movements, until their eyes lock—she chitters and caws, prancing happily in place.

That settles it.

“Ready, girl?” Astrid grins, speaking softly.

“Astrid? What are you doing?” Ruffnut asks, stopping short.

Fishlegs straightens. “Hey, I know that look—“

Astrid’s on the saddle in one jump. “Training’s canceled. Don’t wait up.”

“You just got here!” Tuffnut yells, frowning.

“He’s still out!” Snotlout huffs, exasperated. “What’s the point?!”

She doesn’t respond because she doesn’t know.

She just needs to be there.

Homing, like dragons to their nest.

Homeward, like the old song of war.

This was ridiculous, to scratch Toothless under the jaw when he slinked out towards Stormfly, to come and sit by the bed, and to fuss, needlessly, with a cool towel to Hiccup’s face.

He wasn’t even sweating.

Did he dream, like she did? Did he have the nightmares of the Trial of Flame and of the island? Nightmares of shackled dragons and an ancient queen? Nightmares of families lost to fire?

Nightmares of falling?

He must’ve. They all did.

…But he would have ideas. Better saddles, better hooks. Stronger ropes and cords. Maybe something she’s never even thought of before.

She smiles, almost involuntary.

Definitely something she’s never thought of before.

Astrid touches his hand, her pinky curling around top of his. He's warm. She looks up, studying him with slow care.

He looked fine. He was breathing. His leg…

He would be fine. Toothless was with him.

He’d stirred slightly when she’d whispered, I told you, remember? Come what may.

He would be fine.

…But what if he won’t?

Stoick had to ease her outside when night fell, which was the most embarrassing part of it all. He’d given her a small nod of thanks, but she knew he knew.

Everyone knew, it wasn’t a secret, and even if it was, she’d done a bad job of keeping it.

But still.

Blegh.

Feelings.

Maybe she should’ve trained.

Maybe she should’ve gotten lost in the woods.

Anything.

Literally anything but act like a not-viking.

Stormfly rumbles beside her when they land near her house.

“Funny,” she frowns. “You got to play with Toothless.”

Chittering. It’s a laugh, she knows, and Stormfly bobs up and down, teasing her.

“This is what I get, huh?” Astrid says, shaking her head. She concedes a scratch before heading inside, dropping onto her bed with a dignified plop.

Figures.

Her dragon would have the same penchant for teasing as she did.

Snotlout’s the one who tells her.

He’s passing above her with a group of new fliers, laughing about something in the clouds, when he spots her walking to the forge.

“Hey, Astrid!” he yells, diving Hookfang just low enough to perch on the fishing hut. He juts his thumb back towards the cliff.

Towards the tiered house.

“He’s—”

Awake, her brain finishes, feet pivoting directions.

What a day to leave Stormfly to herself.

She’s not sure exactly when relief gets replaced by annoyance, but it’s somewhere between the start of the uphill path and seeing him from afar, standing with Stoick.

He looks awed, disheveled, and alive.

Must be the stress of the last two weeks that gets to her. Her feet pick up, a half-stomp speedwalk finally getting her to his side, and she just wants to—

“OW!” he whines, the punch landing as hard as she wanted it to. “Is it always going to be like this? Because—“

She shuts him up before he finishes his inquiry, the kiss landing as satisfying as she hoped it would. She feels it when his eyebrows raise and his smile begins, and if she’d thought getting it all out like this would help, she now knows she’s a fool.

One kiss down and the dumb smile it gives her when she sees his face is proof that he’s trouble.

One kiss down and she wouldn’t mind a thousand more.

“You still want my house?” Hiccup asks, throwing his latest foot at Stormfly. It’s feigned casual, the way he keeps glancing back at her, like he doesn’t think she’s the sun and stars—like he doesn’t want to tell her everything he’s been doing all day.

Astrid wonders if she’s any better. “Are you implying something?”

He laughs. “I’m always implying something. It comes with the biting sarcasm.”

She rolls her eyes. Five years of this, surely, should not surprise her. “Go on, Hiccup.”

“You have to answer the question, Astrid,” he says, quirking a brow and grinning. “It’s kind of important.”

“Everything’s ‘kind of important’ to you,” she teases, getting in his face. “You’re the chief.”

“So you don’t want my house?”

“Does the job come with?”

“Sure, I could use a vacation.”

“Hiccup.”

“Astrid.”

“I think I’m way past wanting your house,” Astrid says, leaning back on her hands. She closes her eyes, appreciating the soft breeze in the cove as their dragons splash around in the water with their favorite toy.

“Oh,” Hiccup says, heavy on the disappointment. A huff and a sigh, and he’s beside her, silent and sulking.

She finds his hand without opening her eyes—her pinky curls around his, and she smiles at the feeling of his shoulder bumping hers.

“You’re pouting,” she hums.

“Wha—I’m not pouting. Who says I’m pouting?”

“I know you, Hiccup.”

“Debatable,” he mumbles.

She tightens her grip on his finger. “I want a home.”

He stills.

“With you. Duh. It doesn’t have to be at that house.”

“No?” he asks, and she opens her eyes to find his hopeful.

Like years ago, in the storm-drenched night, the Book of Dragons between them.

When she thought he was nothing.

When she wanted his life.

Funny, how time changes things.

There’s the softest of smiles on her lips as she shakes her head. “No,” she says with a gentle kiss, “but it has to be you.”

“Honestly,” he smiles, forehead resting on hers, “that’s better than a ‘yes.’”

A moment.

Two.

“…I mean, that house is still top pick—”

“Ha. Ha. C’mere, you—”